After reading that story, it seems like she would NOT have been murdered if she had, in fact, listed herself as transgender on the dating website where she met her murderer.
That’s where you’ve gone awry.
You think trans people seeking sex reassignment surgery are doing so strictly because they have a brain perception that their body should look other than how it does look.
I think there may be such people, don’t get me wrong, but let’s separate it out from all of the other things that might be going on there. If an individual person was motivated strictly by the sense that their physical morphology was all wrong, we should see that occurring among people of that original (assigned-at-birth) sex who do not have a bunch of characteristics typically associated with the other sex. So in the case of male-born people seeking to transition to female, let’s consider a person who is male-bodied, totally masculine in all the traditional ways, and is attracted to traditionally feminine women, an extremely conventional kind of guy. Except that Joan isn’t a guy, she says — Joan says this male body is utterly wrong. It has the wrong parts. So she is transitioning to female, at which point she will be a very masculine person with conventionally male interests, but female, and she will live her life as a lesbian. A very butch lesbian.
Haven’t met many Joans? Haven’t heard of many Joans?
If that isn’t your general notion of what a transgender woman is, you should quit with the focus on transgender people as people who look upon their physical morphology and think it is wrong, without reference to the rest of what is going on.
Not following you here, entirely, but I agree that the availability of treatment should not be a criteria in diagnosis of a condition. Through most of history, sex reassignment surgery was not a viable option. Trans people presented as the sex they wished to be perceived as as best they could, or else they lived in ongoing perpetual conflict with the assumptions, projections, interpretations, and beliefs about them that were derived from seeing them as a sex that they did not feel that they resembled in any way other than the physical.
They weren’t sick or delusional.
Nowadays, it is possible to obtain the surgery. Doing so modifies something besides the erogenous zones of the patient. It modifies how other people perceive them and treat them and interpret them and their behaviors. It also modifies how the patient perceives themself, which has to do with a lifetime of internalizing those same patterns of perception.
I considered it. As I said, it held certain advantages.
You discount the thinking of transgender people. You ascribe their stated understanding and experiences to a brain disorder by saying you regard anyone who has such thoughts and attitudes to be “mentally ill”. It’s the theme of this thread. It’s a direct invalidation of the legitimacy of transgender people’s self-understanding.
I would not make it an offense to disagree with anyone, even about their sense of their own identity, but to ascribe someone’s beliefs and concepts to mental illness as a means of invalidating them is a nasty kind of argumentative tool and I would like a boardwide ban on it.
I take it you didn’t read my whole post, correct? I’ll reiterate my point – revealing trans status can be dangerous no matter when it’s done (whether before a date, during, or [the most dangerous] in the midst or aftermath of intimate encounters), and thus it’s entirely reasonable for trans people to only feel comfortable revealing their trans status to people that they are sure will not harm them, whether physically, or by outing them to their employer or family, or in some other way.
I read your whole post. But the question asked seemed to me to be “When has a transgender person suffered in some way for putting ‘transgender’ on a dating profile?”
Your links seem to me to be times when a transgender woman DIDN’T put it on her social media site or dating site or tell the person up front, and when the person she was seeing found out, she got murdered.
So, to me, reading the links you provided, it seems like those two women would have benefited greatly by making their status known right up front, because they probably wouldn’t have gotten murdered. So, I’m assuming you are trying to show how it is dangerous for a transgender woman to reveal her status to a stranger, but those links seem to be demonstrating just the opposite.
IMO.
That question relies on details far more specific than are publicly available in most crimes, in my understanding. It’s possible that some of these women did reveal their trans status before the date or early in the date. We don’t and probably can’t know for sure.
The larger point is that it’s always a risk for trans people to reveal their status, no matter when it is. And thus it’s entirely reasonable for trans people to prefer only to reveal their status when they’re confident that their partner won’t spread it around or otherwise harm them, and thus not to strangers (including on a dating profile, which usually include pictures or other information that could identify them). Do you disagree with this point?
Those links make it pretty clear to me when it was revealed. Of course, they could be lies by the murderers.
Sure it’s risky. And I’m not really jumping in to this side argument. Just that the links you provided as an answer to the question don’t seem to me to be proving your point in any way. To me, they seem to agree with the exact opposite of your point.
Considering various past opinions you’ve stated about transgender people and issues, I’m not surprised, but it’s mind-boggling to me that anyone could suggest that the fact that the revelation of trans status can lead to murder would argue that trans people should more readily reveal their trans status.
While I am curious about what you think my opinions on transgender people and issues actually are, it doesn’t really concern me. What does concern me is that you can’t figure out that in the two pieces you linked to, the women did NOT actually reveal their status to their murderers. They kept it hidden and the killers found out some other way (according to the links that you provided). How this helps your point that revealing transgender status is dangerous is not something I can figure out.
Their status was revealed, and they were killed because it was revealed. If it hadn’t been revealed, they would not have been killed.
And thus it’s entirely reasonable that trans folks might be reticent to have their trans status revealed.
" Andrade later discovered that Zapata was transgender and subsequently began beating her"
You see the part about where she didn’t disclose BEFORE the dating started? That seems to me that NOT disclosing is more dangerous than disclosing. This was going to be one of the first examples I used to counter examples where disclosing Before a date led to murder.
“he murdered Filipino transgender woman after checking into a hotel and then finding out his date wasn’t born female’”
Once again, a death that is the result of a failure to disclose prior to dating. So tell me again why disclosing before is so much more dangerous than disclosing after the dating starts?
Unless you think that people are trolling dating sites looking for transwomen to kill, ISTM that hiding your transgender status might be more dangerous. In fact the examples you have come up with so far both support my argument.
The distinction (disclosing before or after dating starts) is exactly what we are arguing here. So I will ask you again: can you cite any transwomen that were murdered because they disclosed their transgender status on a dating site? Or do we just agree with the trans position on everything because they are trans?
Their brain is not my brain. So I have no idea how person x feels. All I know is if I think I have a tail and I don’t then something isn’t quite right.
Not at all. Your accusation is not accurate. I do not discount the thinking of people. Your conclusion isn’t logical and rhetorically it attempts to silence discussion by ostracism of legitimate inquiry.
What does being mentally ill have to do with strength of argument or objectivity? Nothing. The status of a mind is irrelevant to discussion. If someone says 1+1=2 and that someone has a mental illness that is not incorrect socially to recognize as such is the stated equation any less true? No.
Now, I don’t care how transgenderism is labeled. I think those who need to undergo major surgery and life long chemical treatment to placate their brain’s self perception are suffering from something. I don’t care if Pluto is a labeled a planet. Labels don’t change underlying reality.
I think the bigger issue is not how to label people but how to treat people equally. But that’s not the subject of this thread.
Then you are not addressing the issue that is being discussed. The claim is that transwomen are risking murder by disclosing their trans status BEFORE dating. please cite one example of that happening and I will cite 2 examples of transwomen being killed because they disclosed AFTER the dating started.
I apologize. I could have sworn there was someone else that thought that the burden could just as easily be on the rest of society rather than the trans population.
That’s not the issue. The issue is whether they should reveal it at all to people they haven’t developed trust with. Why should they when it can obviously be so dangerous, to health, career, social relationships, and even life?
You said something far more specific than that, which Miller never suggested.
It’s not reasonable to suggest that trans people must do something - reveal their gender identity to compete strangers - that comes with considerable risk, with no possible benefit.
Why on Earth would anyone think that trans people would agree to this?
It’s this simple:
Most trans people that I’ve spoken to or heard from on this issue have either revealed their trans status to someone they didn’t know very well (or had it revealed), with negative consequences, or know someone who has. So most trans people have personal experience that revealing their trans status to strangers can have negative consequences.
With this in mind, why would anyone expect that all or most trans people would ever decide that they must necessarily reveal it to strangers if they choose to date online, when they have these entirely reasonable fears?
You’re being dense. I don’t know if it comes naturally to you or not. Let’s walk through this one more time.
If someone says 1+1 actually equals 1 under certain circumstances and you say, in response to that, “You’re mentally ill”, you are actually saying
• The assertion that 1+1 can equal 1 under some circumstances is totally wrong and
• If you believe that, your brain is obviously damaged or malfunctioning, you’re “mentally ill”
By bringing it up, you are most vehemently stating that the status of the person’s mind is of central relevance to the discussion. You’re bringing it up as an ad hominem dismissal of the other person’s assertion. You’re essentially saying “We can and should all ignore what you are saying, because it is ‘mental illness’ talking, the things that you are saying prove you aren’t in touch with reality”.
And of course the topic du jour is not “what does 1 + 1 equal”. The topic is the desirability of transitioning, using surgery to make the transition.
You are saying / have said / keep on saying “Anyone who believes it is a good idea to surgically remove healthy organs from their body to to the opposite sex, believing that that’s what their body should be like, is mentally ill”.
That directly translates as “It is NOT a good idea for such a person to do that. And anyone who believes otherwise is mentally ill and we should ignore all the crap that they’re saying about gender and identity because this is a person whose brain isn’t working correctly, this person is not in touch with reality”.
A. This is not the Pit so how about foregoing the personal attacks?
B. You are making completely unfounded and irrelevant assertions about my and others’ point of view. Which you’ve already been corrected on. Then you want to use that strawman to lobby for a board rule change?
Back off.
This thread has enough misunderstanding and hostility without resorting to name calling or personal attacks.
[ /Moderating ]